Some of the key visuals for Pretty Series

Asalam aleikoum how's it going. I initially wrote some of this article for a Discord server. A streamer I like was asking for people's favorite OPs so we'd all watch them together during their streamer anniversary livestream. I ended up sharing the 3rd opening for Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future and the 2nd opening for Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live, along with very long explanations, shocking everyone lol.

Sadly, it's really hard to find detailed info on Pretty Series in English. As such I had to be sure that if anyone got interested after watching the OPs, they had access to all the basic facts about the series.

That's also why I decided to rewrite these Discord posts and turn them into this article.

Note that this isn't a trashy SEO guide I was paid to write, nor a Wiki page, I'm not planning to update this article every year when a new season gets announced.

As a side note if you wanna learn more about my personal history with the series you can read this subs-only post on Ko-fi.

My fav OP animation from Pretty Rhythm, my favorite anime of the 2010s & the 2020s so far. It's part of a bigger franchise called Pretty Series airing since 2011 with TakaraTomy + SynSophia on the arcade games, Avex + Tatsunoko + Dongwoo Animation on the anime series.

Pretty Series is completely unrelated to Purikyua/Pretty Cure/Glitter Force by Toei Animation, besides that they're both Kodomomuke series (series primarily aimed at kids).

Pretty Series is a "media mix" series, meaning that together with the anime you always had arcade games for kids, console ports to Nintendo DS, 3DS, and Switch, and manga adaptations. The series' first arcade game was Pretty Rhythm Mini Skirt, released in 2010, before the first anime aired.

List of Pretty Series anime series

The Pretty Rhythm franchise

Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream. 51 episodes. Notable fact is that the original character designer for the anime is Watanabe Akio, who's popular for the chara design of the Bakemonogatari anime adaptations.

Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future. Sequel to Aurora Dream, 51 episodes. Set 3 years after the end of Aurora Dream, the characters from Aurora Dream are now young adults mentoring a new generation. The anime focuses on the relationship between a group of 4 Japanese girls, Prizmmy, and a group of 5 Korean girls, Puretty. These two groups were based on IRL pop idol groups with the same names.

The series also has a slight focus on theater that ends up peaking during the ending, which is one of the most incredible endings I've seen in fiction. The ending was mainly written by Tsubota Fumi, who primarily wrote for theater before working on anime.

Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live. 51 episodes. Set after Dear My Future but in another world with a brand new cast and rules. There are some secrets and details you will only understand if you watched the past seasons, but there are no direct links.

While they aren't pictured on these key visuals, each season of Pretty Rhythm also features male characters. The male characters of Rainbow Live in particular are extremely important to the story.

King of Prism, sequel to Rainbow Live. Also known as Kinpri. It's a series of movies and stage plays, with the newest movie released in 2025. The first King of Prism movie begins one year and a half after Rainbow Live.

Like its name suggests, King of Prism focuses on the male characters of Rainbow Live, and brand new male characters. It's the same sequel concept as Dear My Future: the male characters from Rainbow Live are now older and mentor a new generation of characters. The female main characters of Rainbow Live also make regular short appearances.

The PriPara franchise

PriPara (brand new series with no direct links to the past ones, 140 episodes)

Idol Time PriPara (sequel, 51 episodes)

Idol Land PriPara (sequel, 13 episodes so far.) Released several years after the end of Idol Time. Was not aired on TV but instead released online.

Long story short, PriPara is the most popular series of all Pretty Series, so the companies behind decided to make more. The Idol Land PriPara project isn't over and more episodes should be coming in the future.

The Kiratto PriChan franchise

Kiratto PriChan (153 episodes). This series was slightly ahead of its time when it started in 2018, as the characters are all streaming, similarly to YouTuber idols / Twitch streamers / Virtual YouTubers. This was when Virtual YouTubers were just starting to get mainstream, and right when YouTube and Twitch were starting to really get ahead of Niconico in Japan when it comes to live streaming.

The Waccha PriMagi franchise

Waccha PriMagi (51 episodes)

The Himitsu no AiPri franchise (ongoing as of 2025)

Himitsu no AiPri (currently airing, 80ish episodes so far).

Additional context

Popularity

Pretty Series is niche outside Japan. Seeing it's a franchise "for kids", it gets looked down on, so you won't find much impressions on it in English. You won't find official releases either. Some of the Kinpri movies were cut into a TV series and were simulcasted on Crunchyroll, along with PriMagi, but that's it.

Pretty Series wasn't very popular inside Japan during the runs of Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream and Dear My Future. Rainbow Live was a bit more popular than the first two seasons as it featured a huge quality boost for its 3DCG scenes. Internationally, Rainbow Live was also the sole of the three seasons that got weekly English fansubs thanks to a dedicated group of fans.

Pretty Series also has a big Korean fanbase, most notably because Dear My Future featured several Korean main characters.

Many people first discovered Pretty Series either via PriPara or via the first King of Prism movie in 2016, and later watched Rainbow Live to better understand the movie. As such, Rainbow Live is by far the most watched season of the three. However, it's important to note that Rainbow Live is overall more dramatic and has way less comedy scenes than Aurora Dream and Dear My Future, which featured plenty of absurd comedy moments in-between the really serious stuff.

I know all this as I watched Pretty Series "live" from the beginning with Aurora Dream in 2011, and kept interacting with Japanese fans on Twitter. I stopped after around 100+ episodes of PriPara in 2016 or so due to a lack of time. I saw some of PriChan's first season, but haven't touched PriMagi & Aipri yet. I'd like to catch up one day insha Allah.

I like all of Pretty Series, but I really love Pretty Rhythm/King of Prism the most.

Dear My Future is my favorite season out of the three and I think it was better than Rainbow Live. Still, Rainbow Live itself is better than any other new anime I've seen since 2014. And then the second King of Prism movie in 2017 finally managed to surpass Dear My Future in my opinion.

After PriPara ended and PriChan started, the series' popularity started to wane in Japan. The pandemic especially affected the end of PriChan and the start of PriMagi.

However, the newest series, AiPri, has become incredibly popular, with its arcade game breaking the records PriPara had set.

Why Pretty Rhythm/King of Prism feels different from the other Pretty Series

Pretty Rhythm and its sequel King of Prism are extremely similar to Gundam in themes, most notably regarding kids dealing with the adults' mistakes. The director of Pretty Rhythm and King of Prism, Hishida Masakazu, and some of the writers like the late Iuchi Shuji, used to work at Sunrise studios under Tomino Yoshiyuki.

There are also incredibly talented writers on Pretty Rhythm, most notably Akao Deko, Murakami Momoko, and Tsubota Fumi who later wrote most of Hugtto PreCure.

There's always prominent adult characters in Pretty Rhythm, either the protagonists' parents or their coaches. In Aurora Dream and Dear My Future, you had several adult women, most notably the main characters' manager and coach, Kyouko, who is in a way the true protagonist.

Similarly, in Rainbow Live, the important adult characters are men, and the story ultimately deals with them. That's also why the King of Prism sequels focuses on male characters.

Besides Gundam, Pretty Rhythm is also extremely similar to old shoujo series like Aim For The Ace and Glass Mask. But it's unique is how the cast practices Prism Shows.

In Pretty Rhythm, the characters aren't idols but Prism Stars. They practice a fictional sports called Prism Shows, mixing singing, dancing, fashion coordination, and ice skating. Most notably, they use special moves that are the most over-the-top-things of all time. They can rewrite reality just like with Reality Marbles (or like Domain Expansions in Jujutsu for younger anime fans). The characters can jump to space or other dimensions, etc.

When Rainbow Live was about to air in 2013, the director of Pretty Rhythm announced that it'd be the last season he'd work on, hinting that the series that would come after would be very different.

As such, starting PriPara, the series removed the Prism Shows and replaced them with slightly tamer idol concerts. The character became idols. The series started being much more like other idol anime and more like other kids anime, though with peculiarities. So PriPara is still better than many of its contemporary anime.

PriChan, PriMagi and AiPri each have their own peculiarities too.

King of Prism and Cheer Screening

Pretty Rhythm was supposed to be over with Rainbow Live. The King of Prism sequel project was only made possible thanks to the fans who kept supporting Pretty Rhythm even after it ended, buying the CDs & DVDs and attending events. Everyone wanted to see what would happen after Rainbow Live, which ended with a sequel teaser even though none was actually planned.

King of Prism features the same core staff as Pretty Rhythm, and is also more balanced than Rainbow Live when it comes to comedy and tragedy. It's also even more over-the-top than the first three Pretty Rhythm seasons. You won't see anything else like it.

It's also important to note that the 1st Kinpri movie in January 2016 almost flopped, but got popular thanks to how the movie was made with Cheer Screening in mind: There are scenes where the audience can voice over lines, sing along, etc.

The first Kinpri movie popularized these screenings in Japan. Before the pandemic closed down cinemas and forced the fad to stop, nearly every single movie in Japan would do Cheer Screenings. Anime movies like Detective Conan, action movies, Indian movies like Baahubali, etc. It was truly a huge cinema culture revolution.

In 2018, I detailed this story on one of my old blogs, using the interview translations and research I had done over the years. That was nearly ten years ago though, so I cringe too much when linking that blog now. I'd love to write about it all again with my current skills and knowledge. I've been pitching stories about it whenever I can but to no avail.

King of Prism initially started as a "simple" sequel, now it's a celebration of all Pretty Series

While Kinpri initially started as a sequel to Rainbow Live, the new characters and elements expand on some of the series' link with the previous seasons and beyond. Kinpri is now a really convoluted story but in a really good way, where characters from all of Pretty Series can appear due to lore reasons.

The latest King of Prism movie, King of Prism Your Endless Call, includes characters from Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream & Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future, PriPara, PriChan, and PriMagi.

Pretty Rhythm was already one of the best anime ever story-wise, but it managed to surpass itself with Kinpri.

In a way, if you really want to understand everything in King of Prism now, you need to have watched all of Pretty Series and played some of the games. You also need to delve into some of the series the staff worked on, most notably Mashin Eiyuden Wataru, some Gundam especially Turn A Gundam, Crush Gear Turbo, Onmyou Taisenki, etc.

Aikatsu and Pretty Series - Eternal Rivals

Long story short, the first Pretty Rhythm game by TakaraTomy and SynSophia was pretty much copied from Sega's arcade game Oshare Majou Love And Berry. They're both rhythm games with collectibles to customize your character's looks.

Following that, Bandai Namco copied Pretty Rhythm to make Aikatsu, and Aikatsu became MUCH MORE popular. So then TakaraTomy copied Aikatsu to make PriPara, and PriPara ended up becoming one of the most popular arcade games in the 2010s in Japan.

However, due to how much pop culture changed in Japan these last 10 years, with how dire things are for Kodomomuke (works primarily aimed at children) and Joseimuke (things primarily aimed at women), the two franchises are teaming up now. Most notably there was an Aikatsu x PriPara crossover movie released in Japan in 2025. I wrote an article about the movie when it was first announced. It's likely the cooperation between the two companies will continue in the future.

I really like Aikatsu but haven't watched past the first season of the first series yet. After the original Aikatsu series in 4 seasons, Bandai Namco also produced the TV series Aikatsu Stars, Aikatsu Friends, and Aikatsu Planet, each with brand new settings and casts.

Nowadays, Aikatsu doesn't have any new anime or games, but instead launched in September 2024 a Virtual YouTuber agency called Aikatsu Academy. There are four idols so far: Himeno Mieru, Mamimu Meh, Wao Parin, and Rindou Taimu. I don't really have the time so I barely listen to their streams, but they seem pretty cool. Himeno Mieru most notably really likes ADV games and streamed Natsuno Kanata Beyond. It's one of the games I regularly recommend.

That's all thanks for reading, feel free to ask me anything in the comments.

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Pretty Series Quick Introduction